Jane Fonda’s biography and what I learned about love and marriage

I don’t borrow a lot of people’s philosophies on life or their prescriptions, but I can relate to Jane Fonda in one swift way: emotionally distant father. Yeah, that’s me. I saw this book at the Pawling Library Book Sale and POOF, I had to have it. I didn’t think I’d be changed or moved by it immensley, but believe me I was. Her words inspirational after a life of miswrongs, marriages that failed, words that couldn’t be taken back, and a pervasive photograph that would change her life forever.

The only film I’ve ever seen Jane Fonda in was this one and it hit HOME.

I won’t give you the synopsis, you probably already know what it’s about: the story written by Oscar nominated screenwriter Ernest Thompson which brings together all the feelings between an emotionally distant and rough around the edges father and his very much in need of love daughter Chelsea. With the mother role filled by Katherine Hepburn, this movie is an emotion-filled powerhouse and near the film your emotions are on the floor!

This is where I was with this film and I, equally in awe of Jane Fonda’s 2005 book “My Life so Far.” I just finished reading all 571 pages of it and it was a revelation, for me that is. Before I left for Paris, I told my stepfather I was reading this book and he almost flipped. He had and still has such strong opinions about her actions in Vietnam and post-Vietnam antics that I was dumbfounded by his reaction. Why after 40 years are we still upset with Jane Fonda or are we? What’s the deal?

I don’t know but I’m a young married gal (somewhat) and I have children and at one point she was in the thick of it too (just with one or two Academy awards under her belt). I walked away from my career to have kids and believe me, it wasn’t easy but I was ready for what it would bring.

Remember that girl in The Wedding Crashers, the one with her clothes on acting normal? We’ll that was me, Janice the secretary to John and what’s his name, Owen Wilson’s character. When people find out I was in a movie years ago, they think it’s so cool and believe me I’m flattered and it’s kind if they go and watch me in it, but I’m in the beginning so it’s easy and plus my part was like 1 minute long!

But I was immensely uncomfortable acting. It was like an extremem version of love and hate. I loved being a part of something that big and hated myself for being so unhumble. At the end of the day, as a Christian believer, I didn’t want all eyes on me but isn’t that what I worked so hard to get to? I was seriously conflicted. Jane Fonda in her book says that when she devoted herself in her “third act” as she calls it (the final act) to the study of religion and when she found herself, going in front of the camera didn’t feel right; she didn’t think she’d feel comfortable again. She questioned herself, would she be good, would she be good enough? She’s older now, more wrinkles, more worries would show, her vulnerability seen. She went on to take up acting in small parts but it would be her charitable work that would come to define her. My question is: why does it take us so long to figure ourselves out and the meaning of life? When you give, you get back more in your heart.

I knew, just as I think Jane had the inkling, that her life in front of the camera was very, very vain.

Also more telling were her regrets of not being the best parent she could be. In my here and now, I have more mothers telling me they are not on social media sites because it distracts them from being “present” with their tots. I am in total awe of them. They’ve never created accounts and I believe they will stay true to themselves in that realm. As I write, I long to be sitting with my children as they watch a movie. I long to cuddle with them and wipe their litle nosies because I dreamed of having little girls. I was granted my wish and I hope to be the best parent I was destined to be. I don’t want to make the same mistakes Jane made. I want to be there.

In reference to On Golden Pond, she said filming that last scene with her father “she was overcome with emotion and that it was because I had to say intimate words to my father that I had never been able to say in real life.” Having an emotionless father is never good for his daughter, never good for the man she will eventually marry and it certainly didn’t work for Ms. Fonda. At Henry Fonda’s death bed, he still did not utter how he felt about her in earnest. Heartbreaking.

We cannot fear men and we cannot fear being happy. We deserve the best of both worlds. A world of happiness, both for our husbands and for ourselves and for our daughters. If we look at the world around us and let people in, we can learn from it all. I firmly believe that. Most men that I’ve met can’t stand Jane Fonda. It’s a shame they don’t understand her story, her words, her feelings. She had such incredible loss but has gained so much insight in her third act. If we all could learn that kind of wisdom a bit sooner-